UPDATE (June 16, 2024) Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals teaches Pro Se Litigant and the District Court Judges and $450 per Hour Attorneys: Federal Court Lacks Jurisdiction – Order Must Be Vacated
In Hammett v. Sherman, et al, the court went to unprecedented lengths, sanctioning the unauthorized practice of law, to transfer assets from the pro se litigant to attorneys and their wealthy clients, also attorneys.
The case is on appeal in Federal Court. It is likely that the California State Courts would not allow this case to have proceeded. Allowing a derivative action advocated by a non-lawyer to proceed is tantamount to authorizing the advocate to practice law.
Here is a list of district court judges who insisted that the derivative case on behalf of Silver Strand Plaza, LLC proceed on the merits, even though it was filed by someone who is not an attorney.
Janis L. Sammartino, nominated by former President George W. Bush.
Todd W. Robinson, nominated by former President Donald Trump.
Linda Lopez, nominated by President Joseph Biden.
While researching for this blog post, I came across an interesting story about Judge Sammartino’s son, a convicted sex offender who had sex with his 17-year-old student while teaching at San Diego’s most prestigious private schools in 2020. It will be interesting to find more about how the 36-year-old judge’s son was treated by the court. Click here to read the story on the NYPost.
One “reason” the judge’s son gave for violating his young student was that he had a bike accident that caused a head injury. My son fell two stories onto his head, and though it caused brain damage to his speech center and hearing loss, his reasoning was not diminished at all, and was in fact improved. Of course, every injury is different, and each individual might respond differently, but I can just imagine Janis Sammartino and her lawyer friends sitting around coming up with this bullshit excuse. Why not attribute his bad conduct to seeing his unethical mother get away with her corruption and his resultant feeling of entitlement?
Also, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal brought a case to the attention of all litigants and asked for supplemental briefing.
Carden v. Arkoma Assocs., 494 U.S. 185 (1990), a decades old SCOTUS case, decided that any entity other than a corporation, such as a limited partnership, is a citizen in each state where any member is a citizen. This includes even limited partners’ citizenship. That makes it impossible for the federal courts to take diversity jurisdiction. (I have not done all the research yet. My supplemental brief will be expounded upon.)
While digging into Carden, I realized that, without the derivative malpractice case against the attorney defendants, the remining damages against the attorney defendants fell far below the $75,000 minimum threshold for federal diversity jurisdiction. Those defendants should have been bifurcated out of the case six years ago, and the remaining conversion case sent to state court.
Jurisdictional problems should be brought up by the Court. Kudos to the Ninth Circuit for doing its job, even if they ignored the jurisdictional error for two previous bids at interlocutory appeal of the order for attorney fees on the anti-SLAPP motion brought by the attorney defendants and their $450 per hour attorneys.
Judge Sammartino, Judge Robinson, and Judge Lopez just wasted an insane amount of public and private resources by keeping the case active in the federal court system for over 300 documents. The Court of Appeals and a sickly old lady who is not an attorney had to school the team of highly paid attorneys and the team of corrupt judges.
Your tax dollars and your justice system at work.
Does Black’s Law Dictionary Define “Bitch”?
Don’t expect too much from this post.
I slept a whopping 5 hours last night. This federal judge in California, Linda Lopez, gave me more needless work and I know if I didn’t spend the entire morning writing, she would order me to pay another $60,000 or so in attorney fees to my adversaries who hired $450 per hour attorneys to take on a self-represented litigant.
Really, with the idiotic rulings issued by the likes of Judge Linda Lopez and her blond twin Judge Susan Kaye Weaver in Arkansas, a sleazy litigant could get away with hiring a bozo like William Zac White and still win.
Lopez and Weaver are flip sides of the same coin… A Democrat and a Republican hypocrite.
Both are evil, unethical, conniving. Both will steal from the poor to give to their friends. I haven’t looked it up, but figure that to be the definition in Black’s Law of —-
Oh, do you want to read the documents I wrote while in a zombie like state? Here they are, your FREE Docs of the Day.
Judge Janis L. Sammartino’s Dishonest Statements Reiterated by Appellate Brief
The Doc of the Day is my Informal Reply Brief in a case that was originally presided over by Federal District Judge Janis L. Sammartino. The case was transferred to Judge Todd W. Robinson, and then passed off to Judge Linda Lopez. The subsequent judges failed to correct Judge Sammartino’s errors on reconsideration.
Enjoy reading the FREE document.
This is not legal advice. I am not an attorney.
In fact, I hope to find an attorney to represent me if the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals remands with instructions to give me leave to amend or proceed to discovery. That way my attorney can file the derivative claims against the attorneys who gave dual representation to the LLC and parties who had conflicting interests.
Contact me at bohemian_books@yahoo.com.
Steppingstone to SCOTUS
Did you miss me?
I’ve spent the last seven days writing an informal appellate brief for the Ninth Circuit.
The 9th accommodates pro se litigants. They have a form to fill out that does not require a table of contents, a table of authorities,,,heck, they don’t even require a layperson to include citations to caselaw.
I’m not aware of the statistics for how many pro se appeals are successful at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals compared to other courts around the country. At least they don’t waste our time, energy and money as badly as say, the Eighth Circuit.
I filed a notice of appeal at the 8th, paid the filing fee and those rat bastards denied me summarily. It was a case against judge Susan Weaver that was denied at the Eastern District of Arkansas by Judge Billy Roy Wilson. Injustices Steven M. Colloton, Raymond W. Gruender and Bobby E. Shepherd didn’t wait for me to file a brief. Zippity-zip, they affirmed the pack of lies old man Wilson wrote when he threw my case out in favor of all defendants before co-defendant Attorney William Zac White even filed a motion to dismiss.
The system is rigged against pro se litigants, meaning the common person who can’t afford to hire an attorney.
I’ve been ill these last few years. I haven’t had the energy to fight.
When the 8th circuit denied my appeal without letting me file a brief, I should have filed a motion for reconsideration and then a petition for certiorari to the United States Supreme Court. I didn’t.
I’m sure I will get another chance.
In the meantime, here is the informal brief that kept me too busy to visit with you, my dear reader.
Is Federal Judge Linda Lopez for the Southern District of California Cognitively Impaired or Purposefully Abusive?
My time is full, so I’ll keep my comments brief. But writing to you, my friends, helps my thoughts gel for my appeal.
Judge Linda Lopez issued a few orders in a case in which I am plaintiff in pro se.
Here is an excerpt from one:
Plaintiff argues that the award of attorneys’ fees to the Attorney Defendants should
be vacated because the legal malpractice cause of action alleged, and later voluntarily
dismissed, was a derivative cause of action that Plaintiff could not properly assert as a party
appearing pro se and without license to practice law. ECF No. 177-2 at 2. In support of her
argument, Plaintiff cites to City of Downey v. Johnson, 263 Cal. App. 2d 775 (1968),
Russell v. Dopp, 36 Cal. App. 4th 765 (1995) and Davis Test Only Smog Testing v. Dep’t
of Consumer Affairs, 15 Cal. App. 5th 1009 (2017).
Though the factual circumstances of each case differ from those in this case and
from each other, the three cases cited by Plaintiff generally stand for the proposition that a
judgment obtained by an unlicensed person representing another cannot be sustained. See
Johnson, 263 Cal. App. 2d at 783 (“[W]e have a lay person not a member in good standing
of any bar practicing law illegally, although perhaps unwittingly. We therefore feel
constrained to hold the judgment invalid[.]”); Russell, 36 Cal. App. 4th at 775 (“an
unlicensed person cannot appear . . . for another person, and . . . the resulting judgment is
a nullity”); Davis Test Only Smog Testing, 15 Cal. App. 5th at 1016 (quoting the language
in Russell). Because no judgment was rendered on Plaintiff’s now-dismissed claims against
the Attorney Defendants, none of the cases cited by Plaintiff support a finding of clear error
by this Court.
*********
So, if I understand Judge Lopez correctly, she proposes that legal proceedings advocated by a person unlicensed to practice law on behalf of a different “person” (natural or legal entity) are not void, unless a judgment is rendered. And she does not count an order of dismissal as a “judgment”.
So Judge Lopez’ soul sister, Judge Susan Weaver of Arkansas denied me the right to advocate for myself as trustee, settlor and sole beneficiary of a trust, because she said, “as far as the Living Trust, she’s not an attorney and can’t represent them”. But Linda Lopez says that complaints and motions based on those complaints are perfectly valid, as long as they are dismissed, and attorney fee awards paying her fellow attorneys almost $100,000 based on the unauthorized advocacy are perfectly valid.
Judge Linda Lopez is Not a People Person
Judge Linda Lopez was recently promoted from Magistrate Judge to Federal District Court Judge in the Southern District of California.
When I have more time, I will analyze her orders in depth.
Today, I will post a motion I filed this morning that you can download and a related motion I filed yesterday.
Briefly, attorney defendants represented by attorneys were granted an anti-SLAPP motion against me for causes of action that are not covered by the anti-SLAPP statute, legal malpractice and conversion. They were granted fees, of course.
I tried to make an interlocutory appeal as provided for in California CCP sec. 425.16(i) and 904.1. The Ninth Circuit would not consider the matter until all claims against all parties were dismissed.
I tried to have the order vacated, in part because the Judge who granted it, Janis L. Sammartino, was biased against me and refused to recuse herself before making the order. Judge Linda Lopez was the first magistrate judge on the case and appears to have the same venomous bias.
The Attorney Defendants then filed two separate motions for attorney fees incurred after the initial award.
Judge Lopez has a good rule. She requires parties who are filing substantially similar motions asking for the same relief to file a consolidated motion.
I made an ex parte motion asking to combine my response to both sets of movants. I mentioned that they violated the rule about consolidation.
Judge Lopez ordered the Clerk to strike my motion because I failed to follow another rule that says parties must meet and confer before filing an ex parte motion.
My friends and even my enemies know I am ill. It is not critical. Y’all are stuck with me for a few more years anyhow, barring a catastrophic injury.
It is difficult to always act with the grace I wish for.
So, I decided that since Judge Linda Lopez was going to hold me to the rules, I am going to zealously pursue my own interests and have the redundant motions stricken. I anticipate Judge Lopez will find for the Attorney Defendants, but not because they are right.
UPDATE: Judge Linda Lopez denied my motion to strike. No surprise. She said that since I said both responses are substantially the same, with just the names changed, that I must file the two separate responses. Since there is an aggregate page count for all motions due on the same day, she halved the allowable length of my response.
A Higher Law 